Right Wing Nut House

Watching and reading how Democrats responded to George Bush’s State of the Union speech last night it suddenly dawned on me; they looked for all the world like the Coneheads, stranded on a planet where the native customs were totally alien to them and where they were unfamiliar with what would pass for good manners.

Of course, the fact that most Democrats have pointy heads only makes the comparison all the more apropos.

It really was a weird display. Hillary Clinton at times looked exactly like my 5 year old cousin trying to move his bowels, straining forward and grimacing as if she could use a spoonful or so of metamusil.

Old warhorse Barb Mikulski, dressed to the nines in a bright red suit, appeared to mouth the word “bullsh**t” following the President’s line “ If there are people inside our country who are talking with Al Qaida, we want to know about it, because we will not sit back and wait to be hit again,” proving to one and all that the Democratic party is unserious about domestic security. How to hide this weakness will preoccupy the moonbats for the rest of the election cycle as they struggle to find the right balance between sloganeering and outright lying.

Dapper Charlie Rangel appeared to be sucking lemons every time the camera found him. He reminded me of Mr. Brunberg, the curmudgeonly owner of the local Ben Franklin store where I grew up who, it was rumored, routinely feasted on the flesh of children who caused problems in his store.

Harry Reid (who probably has a federal prosecutor measuring him for a prison jumpsuit as I write this) played the contrarian as the entire chamber applauded the President’s acknowledgment of the two recent additions to the Supreme Court except him. Harry must have been sleeping during the civics class that covered respect for co-equal branches of government.

And who was that with ex-Clinton hit man Rahm Emmanuel? The man(?) with a bowl haircut, rings on all five of the fingers of his left hand, a scarf wrapped around his neck in the fashion of New York drama critic, and eyes that peered over glasses that had slid down to the end of his nose reminded me of Paul Benedict, the actor who played the snippy Mr. Bentley on The Jeffersons. Like I said…weird.

Then there was poor Joe Lieberman. Following the President saying “Iraqis are showing their courage every day, and we are proud to be their allies in the cause of freedom,” Fightin’ Joe stuck out like sore thumb as the only Democrat in the chamber who clapped. The scowling visage of my home state Senator Barak Obama sitting two seats away highlighted how the Democrats really felt every time the word “freedom” was mentioned. In fact, that seemed to be a reoccurring theme emerging today as the Democrats across the country continue to belittle the thought that human beings are endowed at birth with certain natural rights, the free exercise thereof being squashed by governments all over the world. I found this from Tim Graham at the Corner:

Driving in, I had to sample some “progressive talk” on the SOTU. At the Stephanie Miller Show, they were laughing about (and playing an audio montage of) how many times Bush used the “F-Bomb” last night. That’s their strange description of the word “freedom.” They also mocked the mentions of “liberty.”

And what in the name of God are the Democrats going to do about their friends at the Democratic Underground? Like a drunken brother in law that a host has to hide in the closet before the guests arrive for a formal dinner, serious party members - at least those who are serious about winning elections - ought to be fretting over things like this:

in_cog_ni_to: Has this ever happened to you? The Star Spangled Banner use to bring tears to my eyes. I would always choke up with pride when I heard the anthem. (before I learned how bad this freakin’ country is) and last night at my son’s wrestling meet, the school we were at played the Star Spangled Banner (that’s never happened at any other meet) and I found myself…..ANGRY BEYOND BELIEF! I WAS P*SSED THAT THEY PLAYED IT. P*SSED THAT I HAD TO LISTEN TO IT AND P*SSED THAT THE SHEEPLE STOOD THERE WITH THEIR HANDS ON THEIR HEARTS as if this country is something to be proud of. I was SHOCKED by my gut reaction. I was FURIOUS. It was so unexpected. Have any of you ever experienced that? It’s been YEARS since I’ve been at any event where the SSB was played and my reaction was so visceral. I-was-angry.

(HT: John Hawkins)

Read the rest of that thread for some real jaw dropping responses to the moonbat’s posting. It dramatically points up the dirty little secret Democrats are desperately trying to keep the rest of the country from finding out: they really don’t like the country of their birth very much. And since a recent poll showed that 85% of the people are indeed proud to be an American, if I were a Democrat I’d find some very deep and very dark hole to lure the moonbats at DU into - at least until after the November election.

The display of discourteousness, bad manners, and contempt by Democrats during the President’s State of the Union speech I guarantee did not go down well with independents. It may have been emotionally satisfying to their base. But it only makes it harder for the liberals to win over the very people that Republicans have spent the last year trying their best to alienate; unaffiliated voters whose choices will determine who controls both houses of Congress next January.

Mid-winter in the Midwest is a dark and dreary season. Where once the prospect of snow brought a tingle of anticipation at the prospect of reviving memories of childhood play and the excitement in the changing season, it now breeds a sense of dread; a depressing realization that soon it will be time to haul the snowblower out of the garage and brave the wind sweeping across what remains of the prairie in order to clear the sidewalks so that the snow Nazis ensconced in local government don’t cite you for failing to be a good citizen.

This used to be a free country. You used to have the perfect freedom to be a rotten member of the community and not shovel a snowflake the entire winter. Used to be all you’d get would be dirty looks from your neighbors. Now the protective nannies in local government will issue you a ticket and slap a fifty dollar fine on your backside for being an unhelpful neighbor.

Next thing you know, they’ll be publishing the names of “Snow Removal Scofflaws” on the front page of the local paper in order to shame you into action.

Another aspect of enduring a long winter is that since most of us don’t go to Florida or Arizona for relief, one’s mood makes the journey south for us by taking a turn for the worse right about this time of year. Midwesterners get so tired of dealing with Old Man Winter that they become snippy and short tempered. Their natural persnicketiness morphs into a grumpy gruffness so that trying to carry on a conversation becomes an exercise in monosyllabic futility:

ME: Hi
Next Door Neighbor: Ummph.
ME: Yea?
NDN: Pftttt!
ME: Sheesh!
NDN: ARRGH!
ME: Unhuh.
NDN: F***!
ME: Nosh*t?
NDN: Hellyeah.
ME: Seeya.

After all, it’s hard to carry on a conversation when you’re wearing 20 pounds of outerwear to ward off the cold. You try saying anything when you’re burdened with two mufflers, earmuffs, a ski mask, and that shawl that Aunt Josie crocheted for you wrapped around your head . I guarantee you’ll want to keep the chit chat to a minimum.

In addition to our being vulnerable to this seasonal grumpiness, we become rather insular about our politics. Are the streets plowed? Won’t someone come out and fix these goddamn potholes? Do they really have to use so much salt? Politicians then have long realized that the dead of winter is not the time to approach Midwesterners and ask for their support for much of anything. This is why the President’s State of the Union speech pretty much fell on deaf ears out my way last night. It isn’t so much that we aren’t interested in what’s going on in Washington, it’s just that most people are so heartily sick and tired of the mud wrestling that politics has become that they find it almost as wearisome as dealing with the winter. One gets the sense that they blame the Republicans for many things but see the Democrats as unreasonable obstructionists.

At bottom, there is a general feeling of unease at the direction the country is going but they can’t put their finger on it. The see the economy doing fairly well but fear for the future of their jobs and businesses. They see the war in Iraq going badly and wish it was over but are fiercely protective of their sons and daughters who are fighting it. They worry about their health insurance - if they have any - and are genuinely afraid of catastrophic illness. And many wish social issues like abortion would just go away; not because they don’t have opinions on them but rather they see them as too divisive.

And that is the nub of the Midwestern critique of the state of the nation; the partisan food fights that dominate the news are confusing and depressing. They look to the President for leadership and, like all Americans, see what they want to when examining the person of George Bush and project their own fears and hopes on to his Presidency.

One thing I’ve noticed is that you don’t get the sharp edged extremes in opinion here than you would in other places which only goes to show that we here in the Midwest tend to be a little more realistic about Bush than his base of opposition in the east and his base of support in the south and west. Being an eminently practical folk, we like the man’s common sense but worry about his certitude at times. It used to be called “putting on airs” but is now likened to arrogance. This goes down well when Bush talks about national security, less so when speaking about domestic issues. Trust in the President has worn a little thin but when talking to people about the War on Terror, they seem grateful that Bush is making what appears to be a good faith effort to protect the country. On the war in Iraq, the President is in better shape than pollsters and analysts think. Ask people here any of the standard questions on the war and you get the boilerplate Democratic talking points in response; Bush lied, the war isn’t worth it, we never should have gone in, etc. But unlike pollsters, if you keep talking to them, a slightly different answer emerges.

There is a huge reservoir of support for the men and women in uniform. Everyone knows someone - a family member, a friend, a neighbor’s son or daughter - in the military. And while they are desperately worried for their safety, I can’t find a single person in the groups I run in (most of them can hardly be described as “conservative”) who believes they should come home until the job is done. And they have their own definition of victory that matches up pretty well with what the President has been saying although the feeling that some kind of timetable for withdrawal should be established is pretty popular.

In short, while agreeing with the Democrat’s critique of the war, they disagree with their prescription for ending it. There is also general agreement that the media is deliberately withholding good news from Iraq. They know this because they get letters from the front telling them of an improving situation. And - bad news for Democrats - even registered Democrats think that their own party is being defeatist on the war. Some independents I’ve talked to are even disgusted with what they see as the left playing politics with the conflict.

This is about what you’d expect from a district with a Republican Congressman who regularly gets close to 70% of the vote. But I think even the Democrats I know would agree with my assessment of their opinions. There is none of the rabid Bush hatred among Democrats that I know although there is certainly a strong dislike for his personal style and his policies. In other words, horns but no tail.

From a practical political point of view, the President is in trouble but not overwhelmingly so. Republicans however, are in a real pickle. There is so much disgust with their spending habits, their perceived arrogance, the corruption (Note to Kos; corruption is a bi-partisan issue in the heartland), and a “business as usual” attitude that some long time Republicans I know say they’ll never vote Republican again. This seems to be reflected in recent polling that suggests unless something happens between now and election day to change the political climate, Republicans may wake up to a huge surprise the day after the election.

This Washington Post - ABC News poll shows the Democrats ahead on a generic ballot by 12%. It is unclear how that translates district by district. But I suspect that at the very least it brings more seats into play for the Democrats. And that can only spell trouble for a party that may have a hard time energizing its base to show up and support it on election day next November.

If the Democrats had their act together, I suspect they could play upon this uneasiness felt by voters and turn it into a huge election issue. But since the party can’t even agree on where the bathroom is, it’s hardly likely that they will be able to capitalize on this opening granted them by Republicans.

In the end, as it stands now I suspect that the Republicans will barely hang on to the House and may come very close to losing the Senate. And if things go south in Iraq or some economic crisis is precipitated by an oil shock caused by the Iranian crisis, all bets are off and we could very well end up with a Democratic majority - one that would move for impeachment of Bush within 60 days of the new Congress being gaveled to order.